leewalterstx I think the movie was enjoyable enough from an entertainment standpoint, but I feel it's better to treat this as a complete work of fiction and refer people to the book. There's just too many things that are off for probably artistic and/or dramatic effect, but I feel the story was dramatic enough without all that. Read the book if you want to know the actual facts. I could give a laundry list of differences, but there are just TOO many.

TanQ I'm a sailor and being a sailor I love sailing movies. I also loved Moby Dick, a book that's touching, humorous, thrilling and a deep exploration of the human condition. I was excited to finally get a chance to watch this film, thinking it was an adaptation of that great book. Within the first few lines of dialogue I thought, wait a minute, this writing is terrible. Then I realized this wasn't Moby Dick.The story of the Essex, the whaling ship that inspired Moby Dick, is a harrowing tale of survival. In the Heart of the Sea is not that story. Instead, it's a bland and meandering tale. I don't know how they managed to take a survival story with truly horrifying elements and reduced it to this CGI screensaver but I have some suspicions. Ron Howard should have been my first warning. He's a director that could make the Battle of Stalingrad feel like two hours waiting in a cafeteria line. It's truly appalling. Anyone who's been on a sailboat knows how dynamic the experience can be. They also know how sedate it can feel, as well. Howard focuses on the sedate. He truly has no idea what to do with drama and I can't understand how people keep letting him direct things. Instead of depth and subtlety, we get pedestrian and direct. Another problem is Chris Hemsworth. Hemsworth is the perfect superhero actor. His ability to spout throwaway catchphrases is commendable. His attempts at drama, awkward at best. I would like to think that part of the problem was the script, it's just awful. But better actors have done more with less. Nicholas Cage can turn crap into gold. Hemsworth just looks confused and unsure of himself. He may become a great actor, but I think he'll have to find a direction other than drama. People may defend this film, although I don't know how. I think the biggest flaw was they tried to take a harrowing tale and turn it into a popcorn adventure story. It just doesn't work. When I think of other true stories done far, far better I think of Alive, the 1993 film of a plane crash in the Andes - a gripping tale that gets over the action filled plane crash and focuses on the survivors actions until their rescue. Even Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary, a documentary where an old woman talks for an hour and a half in a monotone in German was far more gripping than In the Heart of the Sea. Thinking about this, I now think I understand the greatest problem with Howard's film. It tries so hard to give itself some sense of importance by dwelling too much on it's connection with Melville's masterpiece. It forces the whaling aspect of the film while completely missing out on what whaling was all about. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that no one connected with this film had actually read Moby Dick. If they did, they would realize how much of the book is on whaling and why. I'm sure Howard just looked and thought "Moby Dick is a story about whaling so we have to have whaling stuff." He completely misses that Moby Dick is a story about revenge and madness but the Essex is a story about survival. So instead of the survival we get this forced connection with Moby Dick. It's dull, rambling and pointless. Skip this movie.

beresfordjd Ron Howard has made many wonderful movies but this is not really one of his best. Who had the idea that the cinema-going public would want to see whales being slaughtered for the oil they could supply in a barbarous way? Of course another drawback is the use of CGI which is almost always obvious. The onboard scenes are brilliantly done but at hardly any point does the viewer have any connection to the captain and crew of The Essex. Yes the film is kind of cold and uninvolving which is unusual in a film directed by Ron Howard. One thing the film does point up is the dreadful life the whalers of the time had. Out at sea for months and sometimes years at a time. Poorly fed and badly treated and always in danger of losing their lives in pursuit of a living.

gloriahur Based on the true story of the Essex, this movie depicts the physical and mental conditions of the crew very well with magnificent visual effects that are not exaggerated and realistic. The first half of the movie shows the conflict between Chase and Pollard when Pollard, who is not experienced in the whaling business but is from a prestigious family, becomes the captain of the ship instead of Chase, whose dream was to become a captain. Chase actually was promised to get the position this time, but was put off due to his status in the society. This illustrates the social inequality at that time.The second half of the movie becomes much more intense and turns on to the human instinct of survival. Although the action that was shown in the trailer was very brief, the stillness and the emptiness of the sea after the destruction of the ship is emphasized more through the contrast between the scenes. Everything becomes much more depressing and tiring and the image made me feel as if I was also lost in the sea. The fear and the despair of the lost crew is well portrayed through the great acting and the plot doesn't lose focus until the end of the movie. Some scenes of the movie, although realistic, were quite shocking, and the scenes when Chase looked into the whale's eye and didn't kill it, and when someone said that oil was found in the ground lingered in my mind for a while.